Michael G Wilson, the producer, admits he was 'devastated' by Sam Mendes's
sudden decision not to direct a follow-up to Skyfall.

Sam Mendes’s decision to opt for the ejector seat rather than stick with the James Bond franchise – he had been expected to follow up on his success with Skyfall – took the producers by surprise.

“We’re devastated,” Michael G Wilson tells me at the South Bank awards, organised by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Arts. “We didn’t expect it, so I have no idea who will replace him. We’re still reeling. We only found out a day before the announcement. I think he feels like he’s done it now, but hopefully we can tempt him back.”

Barbara Broccoli, for her part, adds: ”It’s a ------, isn’t’ it? We’re very sad he’s decided not to do it as we really wanted him on board.”

Mendes is unlikely to reconsider: he is now pre-occupied with his stage productions of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and King Lear.

As Chris Huhne begins his eight month prison sentence, the fallen Cabinet minister may wonder why he used to fret so much about prison places.

In the Commons, he was forever tabling questions about them. As long ago as 2008, he asked the Secretary of State for Justice: “How many prison places are expected to be available in each year between 2007-08 and 2014- 15.”

He ought, perhaps, to have had a sense of forboding when the period 2013-14 was left blank in the figures that he was given.

Baby talk

After her brother Sam Branson married his long term girlfriend Isabella Calthorpe last week in South Africa, Holly Branson says the pressure is on to produce a grandchild for her father.

“My family are desperate for a grandchild, especially now Freddie [Andrews] and I are married,” the 30-year-old, above, tells me at a party to celebrate her grandmother Eve Branson’s book, Mum’s the Word, at Grace Belgravia. “It’s definitely on the cards.”

There’s still a glint in the eyes of Eve, by the way. When I ask the 89-year-old matriarch if, after the death of her husband Ted last year, she has given up on love, she shakes her head. “Am I looking for another man? Of course I am!”